I recently bought an Asus Eee PC 1005HA-B from Best Buy. I wanted to upgrade the RAM to 2GB, so I bought a Kingston HyperX 2GB PC4200 (533MHz, 3-3-3-8 timing) SODIMM from Newegg. It received a lot of great reviews, with other netbook owners commending how fast it was with the CAS latency of 3. However, when I installed the RAM, I got a BSOD before Windows XP could load, with an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error. I know it’s a problem with the memory because when I stick the stock RAM back in, it boots fine. I’ve checked the BIOS for options to increase the CAS latency but I can’t find any option to do so. Am I out of luck with this RAM?

Asustek is trying to further cash in on the huge success of its Eee PC netbook range. It has some very ambitious plans and innovative products up its sleeve. One of those innovations happens to be voice-controlled Eee PCs.

"The first Eee PC or Eee Top products implementing voice-recognition and features will be ready by Q3/Q4 2009 – with our dedicated development team working with third parties in both Japan and the US and reporting directly to me. So this is something we will see very soon, later this year." Shen told Tech Radar.

Asus will have to come up with a truly remarkable voice-recognition technology to even pose a threat to our beloved keyboard.

ASUS CEO Jerry Shen discussed the Eee PC range at great length during an interview given to Laptop Magazine. He pegged all-time Eee PC sales – it has just completed its first year in the market - at around 4 million units. Shen confirmed rumors that the first batch of touch panel Eee PCs will become available by early 2009, but withheld details of the touch-sensitive netbooks.

He disclosed that the 7-inch Eee PC has performed very well till now. Shen rejected the possibility of an Eee PC with a screen size in excess of 10 inches. He argued against the notion that its Eee PC range has pushed all its other notebooks to the background. Finally, Shen said that Eee PCs running Windows 7 will become available in mid-2009.

This means that the Asus Eee PC 2G, 4G, 900, 900A, 904HD and 1000HD models are going to feature Celeron M processors. However, it needs to be mentioned that some of the above models already employ Celeron processors. By using the cheaper Celeron M processors Asus also intends to keep costs low. According to PC World, Intel expects to catch up with demand by Q3 2008.

The specs on the power-efficient desktop remain similar to the Wind laptop: a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, up to 2 GB DRAM, 160 GB hard disk storage, and WiFi 802.11b/g to keep you connected. It comes with Microsoft Windows XP. Unlike the Wind mini-laptop it has an in-built DVD drive. But just like its portable cognate from the MSI stable, it is highly power-efficient and consumes 7 times less power than other desktops.

The top-end version is priced $299 and the base model has a $199 price tag.The commercial launch of the small desktop will not happen until August and only business users will be able to lay their hands on this slender desktop in July, as MSI expects them to be set its cash registers ringing.